Empathy: it's good... right? · 8:49pm Mar 24th, 2021
So, I was watching this video about bullying:
And it made me curious: a lot of the antagonists in my stories are meant to be heroes of their own stories. Their arcs encourage readers to look at things from their point of view and generally I want my stories to encourage empathy and understanding.
However, videos like the one above make me worried that I'm sending a bad message: because sometimes there are people that are just cruel and entitled, and trying to understand them only allows them to take advantage of your kindness and get away with doing horrible things to others. Like kanchomerocks12 says in the comments for the above video:
"Every bully has a backstory"
No. Most of the time they do, but sometimes they're genuinely just assholes
Granted, Myst, the antagonist of my upcoming novel, does note the dangers of empathy and understanding (she was taken advantage of by many humans in her life, and it broke her), but Myst is still an antagonist, and I'm worried her way of thinking is treated as wrong, despite her having a point. Like in this excerpt from the novel:
“I’m stating the facts,” Shiva snapped back. “You wanted to fight monsters who hurt dogs? Fine. But you turned yourself into a monster to do it.” She looked away. “And when you treat others like monsters, how can you be surprised when they do the same to you?”
“Because they did it first!” Myst snapped, her voice cracking as she looked away. “We were supposed to be their friends. Man’s Best Friend!” Her lower lip quivered. “But where was their friendship when they locked me in a cage? Tortured me? Killed my pack mates in front of me? Filled me with drugs? Turned me into ‘this?’” she indicated her mutated body, “And then sent me off to die in their wars?!” She looked down. “I waited so long for things to change. But if the people like your precious master were trying to change things, they either weren't working hard enough, or no one listened to them.” She looked back up at Shiva. “So, I gave them a response they couldn’t ignore.”
Granted, she's a villain because she takes it too far - she kills Shiva's master for the crime of being human, leads an army of werewolves/former abused dogs to slaughter the human race, and if I end up making a displaced fanfic for Myst, she'd try to manipulate Celestia and Luna into rallying the ponies of Equestria to exteriminate the humans of her world. Both Celestia and Shiva rightfully call her out on answering evil with an even greater evil. But I want Myst's point to still stand: she trusted humans, and it brought her nothing but pain.
I feel like how I portray Myst is going to be what makes or breaks my story. How can I ensure that her point is not lost behind what she does? And, more importantly, what's a good way for her point to influence my main character to get the moral across that one needs to balence empathy and keep it from becoming gullibility.
This is a good point. In both The Blue Knight and EROH, there are villains that are the foil of each other. Without spoiling too much, I'll say that one made sure that her daughter was unable to have children, as she was the only one of her children to survive, and being the youngest and smallest of them, she was hated. There was no reason for this hate, other than her mother thought it wasn't natural for her, the weakest, to survive, when others hadn't.
Now, in the other case, this villain was raised without his parents. He doesn't remember much, other than distinctly remembering he was there when they died, as he can remember their screaming and the sound of Royal Guard voices. However, he never received any answers from Celestia or Luna, leading him to believe they were covering up something. He resolves to remove them from power in a (supossedly) non-violent fashion. He doesn't realize he's the villain until after he sees what ponies are doing, and that, even if the Princesses were covering up something, what he was doing to remove them was worse than what they'd done.
These two show my views on empathy. They're both villains, and are bad, but one is truly evil. The other is empathetic to the cause of pony kind, but the other merely wants to be the greatest. They're both dangerous, willing to kill, but that leads one to see that he would never be what he thinks the Princesses, or any ruler in general, should be. They're different views on their peers, leads one from being manipulative and cutthroat, to outright bloodthirsty, while the other remembers who their parents raised, what he should be doing, and attempts to make it up to the ones he's harmed.
I believe that empathy starts with yourself. Empathy is emotion, but if you conceal your emotions, you can't feel empathetic. For the longest time, villain 2 hides his feelings and intentions, leading him to be cruel and cutthroat. Upon realizing his emotions after losing the one other person he loves, he attempts to fix it all. Meanwhile, villain 1 is only concerned with her being higher than everyone else. This leads her to disregard the emotions of others, which is why when she realizes her prideful ideals are wrong, she lashes out with rage. The concept that she's wrong is what causes her to hide her emotions away, virtually killing them, and her lack of empathy to her peers lead them to not care about her.
For one, empathy of others is their redemption. For the other, it's their downfall. These two are my two views on empathy. 1) If you keep your emotions alive, you'll have empathy towards others. 2) Empathy requires you to have emotion for others. You need to know what feelings build empathy before you act on it.
Sorry for the long explanation.
I haven't watched the video yet, but there's an important corollary to this:
While this might be true, it still doesn't make what they're doing right.
5482689
No apology necessary. That was a very good explanation. Well thought out and very detailed.
Are there links to these two stories (Blue Knight and EROH). They sound like they would really help me out a lot.
5482690
Exactly. That's pretty much one of the major themes of my novel; no matter how bad someone's had it, their past doesn't give them the right to make someone else's life bad. The culimination of Shiva's character arc is her getting to tell this to everyone that's been harassing her and treating her as a monster just because they suffered from creatures like her in the past. But due to how the story plays out, she only gets to tell off Myst, and Myst is closer to an ally for Shiva, despite her antagonistic attitude, while a group of dragons who tortured Shiva, and the humans who allowed the dragons to do so aren't confronted by Shiva, as she learns to just stay away from them.
I tried to fix it by having a supporting human character call out the humans, and for one of the dragons to have an epiphany and call out her fellow teammates, but I'm not sure if it carries the same punch.
Anyway, thank you both for responding
. I was struggling with this for a while, and it felt good to be able to write my thoughts down.
To me this sounds like it needs to more be a war of morals maybe tone down the violence a bit and have it so that your antagonist is undermining things rather than outright killing people maybe make her a bit more of a lex luthor type villain maybe not as smart as him but the general idea being that the antagonist tries to undermine Shiva’s point of view.
Speaking of Shiva your howlite howler stories are for me an example of I guess breaking suspended disbelief at least for me. I kept reading them because they were interesting but at the same time not once does Shiva at all connect in any meaningful way with the ponies who by the third book are supposed to be her allies, she treats them like fodder for her to drain of magic when she needs to and only tolerates them in other situations.
It breaks immersion when a character who through the events of three books doesn’t change( at least from my point of view Shiva remained the same from getting free of beast breaker to kicking sombrero out of her son, she never once sees ponies as anything other than below her wether that is in morals or simply as a race).
I agree with everything but what I always think about and that whispers sometimes...
Who benefits for me thinking this way?
And based on this narrative? What can someone gain from me doing this thing?
Its pretty much thinking on revisionist history and the powerful and the influenced.
How history is written is important because it says a lot about who is telling the story.
Consider this. In your novel humans have tortured and mutilated dogs?
Warped them into something they are not.
So my thought this. Is this a isulated instinctce?
How to spell instance? Ah got...it.
Or something larger...what if the humans...did nothing say...?
Hundreds and thousands of creatures that are innocent and did nothing. Which since people and animals should not be experimented....
The question if people know....and do nothing about injustice are they too not...guilt of something...
And if this true then....what is a good human/creature supposed too do when your people are in bondage and the supposed...."good" people are doing bad things.
Because history has shown that people with money and power get away. Have always won their freedom....
So?
Just some thoughts on narrative. Sorry if I did not strictly answer your questions. It just its interesting that she is wrong....which she is...but what if her entire species was enslaved.
Are just judging her because we are human. Thus empathize more with humanity then a...
Other?
She also natural could stop. But ounce again those who have commit genocide have not been punished.
Who is guilt and who is free to go about there business?
Because actions influence more then just you but...
Others?
You know?
On a side note. Is why on paper for me. Celestia is a bad ruler.
Not because she is evil...per say.
But she allows and facillates infantile behaviour well...consider the amount of storys that feature corrupt nobles...
A corrupt government.
So no matter how good she or kind. At the end of the day everone....EVERYONE.
Knows she has the power to end all life. And...
Who could stop and who dare...when whos to say she wont find your decendants...and....?
You do not know...her more so then your fellow mortals because...her only peers are her sister and maybe Twilight....and we all know family is biased.
So who looks out for the powerless, the ugly, the infirmed, the very very mortal?
Further I just wanted too add. That involved is also the narrative of even what is actually happening...i.e
For the humans. Bad dog. Bad and not obeying masters.
For myst? Is this not a war for her people?
Just forgot to mention the stories people tell themselves and about others is important.
Oh thats a ....whatever or...
That conflict necesary because...xyz.
like what happens in the after of the story?
Thats what always stays with me...
Or people just get away with say torture and...murder?
5482751
Here's The Blue Knight, and here's Equestria's Ray of Hope. Both are my stories, and are incoplete, with neither of the villains met/revealed.
5482957
Thank you kindly.
5482753
Sorry for the late reply; I completely missed this comment, and I don't know why. I swear I had notifications on. 
I absolutely agree with you. Thank you for pointing that out to me. I never realized it before, as I felt her past experiences justified it, but when you mention it, Shiva does usually seem to get a very 'holier-than-thou' attitude towards the other ponies.
Which is actually kinda sad: I've constantly watched videos critiquing RWBY and how the characters have the exact same problem. You'd think I'd recognize it when I'm doing the exact same thing.
I'm going to see if I can try and fix that in 'Of Scales and Fur;' something like where human characters (who replace ponies here) help Shiva during her adventure, and she develops a great amount of respect for them. Then, when she joins Myst, and sees how little Myst thinks of the humans, Shiva stands up for them and from there, they go to your idea, with both Shiva and Myst not physically fighting, but undermining each others ideals, as Myst just wants to see humanity as 'the enemy,' while Shiva is telling her that while some humans are dangerous, there are others that aren't that bad.
Do you think something like this might work? Thank you again for your feedback, and again, I'm really sorry I didn't get to this sooner.
5499420
Thanks for responding and from my comment those are just my thoughts if you feel they work go for it if not then I don’t mind as I’m just giving suggestions and you have the final say on what happens in your story.